1. Field
One or more aspects of embodiments according to the present invention relate to infrared detectors, and more particularly to infrared detectors employing a cavity resonator, and including two semiconductor layers to detect two wavelength ranges.
2. Description of Related Art
Infrared detectors are used in a wide variety of applications including, for example, remote sensing, infrared astronomy, and various military applications. Infrared detectors are generally sensitive to thermal noise, and may therefore be cooled to cryogenic operating temperatures, for example, approximately 77 Kelvin (K). Recently, there has been a significant interest in higher operating temperature (HOT) infrared detectors, particularly HOT infrared focal plane arrays (FPAs), to remove or reduce the need for expensive cooling systems. Current approaches to realizing HOT detectors have focused on either the material design to address fundamental mechanisms such as Auger recombination, or reducing the volume of the detector to reduce sensitivity to thermal noise. However, by focusing on only one aspect of the problem at a time (either recombination or volume reduction), current approaches limit their utility, and even when ideally implemented, these solutions do not necessarily achieve a high enough operating temperature to provide significant benefit. Further, volume reduction techniques typically focus on single absorber/single color devices, resulting in narrow band devices, limiting their usefulness. By including multiple absorbers multi-color and broadband devices are realizable.